Silent Hill: Faith and Propagation
by KivaPop
Summary: A young woman named Trishe seeks to escape the vicious cycle of her current lifestyle. Her attempt to flee this life leads into the depths of her worst nightmares. Inspired by a franchise that transcends culture and taps into the darkest realms of psychological horror. Faith and Propagation is a fan interpretation of the Silent Hill cult and mythology.
1. Prologue

How to propagate. Page thirty seven of the guiding hand. The gilded binding, pages thin and crisp as shed serpent skin. Flipping dismissively to this oh so important segment, I resume my relentless study. How. To. Propagate.

How ludicrous. How utterly, unbelievably ideal. Everything is spelled out in simple commandments of a long dead messiah, an errant poet with unrecognized genius rattling within his damaged brain. The thoughts, the knowledge, the wisdom took shape - forming into hissing scarabs that ripped, chewed, clawed, and tore their way out of his mind and poured from his ears. They scuttled viciously, furiously down his shoulders to his hands -

And from there, he transferred them to these pages.

These horrid, evil thoughts. These cruel, sadistic urges. These deranged ideas.

With deep anguish, he put them upon these pages so that we might be saved. So that we might find paradise.

How to propagate.

Simple.

 _Lift your tome and place it under your arm._ _  
Step forth from your home and find the nearest street._ _  
Close your eyes and walk forward. See not with the body that binds you to this rotting, mortal realm. See with the soul that God has bestowed with promise of paradise lost. See the spires, the jagged peaks that erupt from the earth on either side, impaling vermin, infants, sinners and saints alike. See the meat, bile, and carnage strewn about.  
This world is not for us. This world is not for you.  
But we can escape. We can find the paradise that God sought to create so long ago.  
The promise was delayed, but not broken. Keep your pace. Keep forward.  
Find those who would question your path, what guides you, as your eyes remained closed.  
Present your tome. Present your wisdom. Awaken them from their apathy and their resignation.  
Give them hope again. Show them the way to paradise. Have them show others.  
Spread my words. Propagate the faith._

I have read this passage countless times. I have burned every inch of it into my mind. I can feel the messiah's pleas, hear his relentless sobbing echoing from every room of my apartment. He knew so much. He understood... so... much. And such wisdom is accompanied by profound pain. And abject terror.

I know because even I can feel the faint twinges along my fingertips and shoulders - the throbbing ache behind my temples. The scarabs are forming within me, too. They scuttle beneath my skin and grow with each passing day.

My time is coming soon.

Once I successfully propagate the faith.

Then my scarabs will burst forth - and I will put what I have learned onto new pages.

I can save you. All of you. I will succeed where the messiah failed. I will lead you all to paradise.

God will be reborn.


	2. Chapter One: One The Road

_I'm so damn sick of this. This is the last time I let him get away with it. I'm just fucking done._

Trishe cursed the man repeatedly in her mind, cycling back again and again to her declaration of surrender with the addition of increasingly colorful slurs.  
If she repeated it enough times, she'd eventually manage to convince herself of her own decision. Convince herself that she wouldn't struggle to patch up their eternal cycle of dysfunction. Convince herself that she truly hated him, that she no longer gave the slightest trace of a shit about where he was, what he was doing, or when she would see him again.  
Never. She would never see him again. She knew that if she did, she'd trap herself once more in the painful spiral of their broken relationship. This had to stop.

Releasing the tortured breath that she only just realized she had held in her lungs throughout the entirety of this most recent introspection, Trishe failed to prevent a sudden, pained sob from escaping. _Stop it_. She had to keep herself under control. Her vision was obscured enough as is. Twenty or so miles back, the highway had unexpectedly transitioned to an unlit country road surrounded by thick woods on either side. As the last traces of sunlight slowly disappeared, the piss-poor excuse for headlights on her severely dated sedan did little to help illuminate her path, and tearing up would undoubtedly end with her wrapping the hood of her vehicle around a sturdy and otherwise unremarkable pine tree.

She eased off the gas slightly, dropping to a more reasonable but steady speed as she pushed deeper into the enveloping blackness of a seemingly moonless night. There was something oddly appropriate about it all, a bizarre symmetry between her surroundings and her current state of mind. She no longer knew where she was going. How could she? Since when do highways turn into empty roads with no streetlights? In fact, no visible signs, speed limit indicators, or other signs of civilization appeared. Just trees. Vast, unending columns melted into view - seeming to move slowly in the distance but speeding up as they blurred past her on either side. Trishe wondered if there was an appropriate term for that illusion, or the perspective that causes it. If she'd learned about it at any point during her schooling years, she'd long forgotten.

The brief silence from her car radio ended with a drawling announcement from a youthful, apathetic-sounding host introducing the next song as _Crusaders on Ice_ by the Crimson Sect.  
"Wow..." Trishe groaned under her breathe.  
When she initially turned to the station, a different host had provided a pleasant selection of classic rock oldies of the '60s and '70s, the sort of stuff her father borderline brainwashed her with in her youth. Not that she complained, of course - quality was quality.  
But as the sunlight faded and the host pleasantly announced the conclusion of his program, several minutes of heavy silence followed. Trishe had barely noticed at first, her own thoughts effectively drowning out the background noise prior to that point. It was when the silence was first broken by the new, less enthusiastic host that her attention was jarringly directed back toward the radio. Each song he played was... difficult to discern. They all seemed to defy genre, mixing eclectic elements of folk and tribal sounds, heavy and distorted instrumentals, vocals that seemed to lack lyrics. And then, each song was followed by a strained silence, in which several agonizing moments of emptiness would pass before the host returned, as if suddenly reminded that he had a job to do.  
Trishe had attempted to change stations after the first couple of tracks, but to no avail. Every channel outside of the first was static, which only grew increasingly loud the further she strayed away from the single station with its unnerving program. Where in the hell was she, that she could only pick up one radio station?  
She considered simply turning the radio off, but the complete absence of noise struck her as even more unpleasant than the surreal program. And so she endured. And continued forward, driving into opaque, endless void. No destination awaited her. She had no clue where this road would lead, and she didn't care. For tonight, and perhaps for the foreseeable future, she simply needed an escape.  
Hours passed. It began to feel like days, but Trishe's frequent glances towards the digital clock above the car radio helped her keep track of each tortured minute.  
Her eyelids began to weigh upon her vision, and her determined desire to escape and leave everything behind was increasingly undermined by fatigue. There had to be a stop somewhere. Even something as simple as a truck stop, or a broken down motel forgotten by time. Trishe couldn't be picky at this point. Minutes continued to crawl past. Nothing.  
The idea of simply pulling off the road to take a brief rest in her car crossed her mind several times, but she adamantly suppressed the thought. Something about the black haze, the lurking and impenetrable darkness between the trees had begun to make her nervous. As irrational as it sounds, she couldn't shake the feeling that something was watching her from within the shadows. She had to find somewhere safe to stop, at least some slight sign of human civilization that challenged the looming, oppressive woods.  
Soon enough, she was at her limit. Her head drooped slowly, her consciousness slipping away into comfortable oblivion before violently snapping back as she jerked herself awake. This happened again and again, the jolts back to a semi-alert state growing steadily worse.

Then, an especially jarring jolt occurred. Trishe snapped fully awake. Her eyes opened. And she saw.

Trishe saw the man in the road. She panicked and swerved. The flow of time seemed to halt entirely, and Trishe saw.

She could see the man clearly as she passed him. He was almost entirely undressed - his pallid, aged skin seeming eerily luminescent amidst the murky darkness. His only article of clothing was a single scarf, draped over his shoulders and hanging loosely on either side in a way that made him appear almost priestly. His bald head craned backward to look toward an empty, starless sky, and his face, lined with decades of wisdom and hardship, was entirely expressionless. His lips were slightly parted, and his eyes... closed. His arms were stretched outward on either side, a pose reminiscent of crucifixion... Or perhaps, he was embracing the void that surrounded him. Perhaps he had meant to embrace his oncoming demise as Trishe had unknowingly driven toward him. Had he even seen her? Were his eyes closed this entire time? Across his chest, dark red ink crudely spelled out _PARADISE_. Trishe hoped it was ink. In this elongated moment, this impossible disruption in the flow of time, the man's head turned toward Trishe's car. His eyes remained closed, but his lips began to move. It should have been impossible for Trishe to hear him from inside of her car, yet somehow his voice reached her with alarming clarity.

 _Let me lead you, my child._

And the moment passed. Time returned to normalcy. Trishe's car veered violently off of the road and past the man. The clustered wall of trees that awaited her speeding vehicle offered no clear path. The impact as Trishe's vehicle slammed into an especially large trunk was like nothing she'd ever felt. Her seatbelt served its purpose diligently, but knocked the breath out of her and rid her of consciousness entirely as the sedan's hood crumpled inward and her windshield shattered. Then silence.

Trishe only awoke once that night. She lifted her head slowly to see the windshield and front end of her car completely ruined beyond repair. She could feel a small, prickling sensation of pain from fresh scratches along her cheeks and arms. She felt a brief sense of relief that she had not been more seriously injured. This relief was swiftly shattered as a piercing, throbbing pain assaulted her temple and the back of her skull simultaneously. It came and went in waves, seemingly in time with her heartbeat.

 _This is a concussion. This has to be a concussion._

Trishe let out a weak groan. She couldn't let herself pass out again. She had to find help. Any sort of medical attention. She couldn't risk what might happen if she lost consciousness. Struggling to turn her aching neck to look around her car, she spotted her phone on the passenger side floorboard. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but the screen appeared to be cracked.

 _Just not my night, I guess._

Trishe smirked slightly, the combination of overwhelming fatigue and pain leading to resignation. Even if she called for help, what were the chances that somebody could find her in time? Her head drooped, and her eyes closed as she prepared to sink into liberating sleep, for possibly the last time. And as her mind began to cloud over, she could barely register the sensation of a pair of hands, tearing her seatbelt off of her and pulling her from her seat.

 _Oh right, there was a man..._

Trishe woke up. She was no longer in her car.  
She slowly and pitifully managed to pull herself up to a seated position. Her body ached to a degree that was entirely unfamiliar to her. It was a new, and thoroughly unpleasant sensation.  
Groaning irritably, she glanced about to take in her surroundings. She was in a quaint, rustic room. The walls, floor, and ceiling were comprised of dark, wooden boards entirely bereft of paint, wallpaper or carpet. There were no decorations or framed pictures hanging on the walls. Aside from the surprisingly pristine white bed upon which she now sat and a ceiling fan with lights attached, the room was entirely barren.

But across from the corner where her bed was stationed, there was a single door, painted a dark green that fit well with the surrounding wood. With no visible windows, this door seemed to be the only way in or out of the room. And just as Trishe registered this detail, almost on cue, the door slowly swung inward. Trishe froze, too disoriented to properly respond to what was happening - and much to her surprise, a nurse entered the room.

Her visitor was stunningly beautiful, and absurdly out-of-place in the room. Much like the bed, her uniform was perfectly white and crisp. Her hair was a radiant, unnatural shade of red with faint highlights of orange peeking between strands. She appeared to be in her early twenties, and her expression was remarkably serene and pleasant. In her haze of muddled consciousness, Trishe began to legitimately question if she had died in accident, now finding herself in the presence of such an angelic being.

As their eyes met, and Trishe could almost feel herself drawn into perfectly clear, emerald irises, the nurse let out a soft, surprised gasp.

"Oh, you're awake! Good morning, Lyra."


	3. Chapter Two: Crossing Over

"Oh, you're awake! Good morning, Lyra." the nurse beamed enthusiastically, her smile practically lighting up the room entirely on its own.  
"I'm so relieved! If the Father hadn't found you and brought you when he did, who knows what would have happened..." she breathed a heavy sigh, her picturesque beauty somehow matched only by her expressive voice and behavior, full of genuine concern. Trishe could barely keep focus enough to grasp what was happening. What had she called her? Lyra?  
"I, um... Hold on, I think there's some kind of mistake," Trishe struggled against her natural stammer as her mind slowly pierced the lingering haze to achieve clarity. "Why did you call me Lyra?"  
The nurse froze, gaping in an almost comically confused fashion. Even bewildered, she was utterly perfect. How the hell did she do that?  
"I... I called you Lyra because that is your name... Are you alright?" the nurse almost visibly bit her tongue and shook her head at the ridiculous question. Clearly Trishe was far from _alright_ , but at least she was alive.  
"I'm so sorry," the nurse continued. "I shouldn't overwhelm you. You already had so much to worry about with the Propagation. It's no wonder that you..."  
She trailed off, her mixed expression clearly communicating her internal struggle to find the right words.  
"Were you... Were you trying to die?" the nurse murmured in a quiet tone. There was a wounded edge to her words. This conversation had transitioned into something personal, something between close friends - or perhaps closer than that. But Trishe had never seen this woman before now...  
"I don't..." Trishe groaned and raised her hand to her throbbing temple as she tried in ernest to remember the events prior to waking in this unfamiliar environment. Flashes of memory slowly stitched together, and she took a deep breath as the violent memory of the crash resurfaced.  
"I was... in an accident. There was a man in the road. I missed him... and hit a tree..."  
Trishe gasped, having an unexpected amount of trouble catching her breath. The memory was too vivid, too visceral. How did she get here? Did the man pull her from the wreck? She seemed to have some faint recollection...  
"An accident? A... car accident? Lyra... How did you get a car? I didn't even know you could drive..." the nurse replied, utterly bemused in her perfectly practiced fashion.  
"What? Of course I can drive. And I'm not Lyra..." Trishe's face mimicked the nurse's confusion. It was like conversing with somebody who spoke a different language. "My name is Trishe."  
"Lyra..." the nurse replied, her voice laden with sincere worry. "Don't you remember...? Do you know who I am?"  
"No. I'm sorry, but you're mistaking me for somebody else. We've never met," Trishe's voice was weak. The poor nurse seemed so hurt and concerned. It was heartbreaking to say these things to her, even if the alternative made absolutely no sense. This entire situation was ludicrous!  
"I'm Courtney. Courtney Mason... Lyra, I'm your best friend!" the nurse stepped forward, her eyes glistening with the hint of tears she was clearly fighting to hold back. "We grew up together... We've known each other forever. How could this happen..."  
With that, the nurse broke down. Collapsing beside the bed, she buried her face into the sheets and began to sob with her sweet, perfect voice.  
Trishe's initial hesitance and sympathy turned cold.  
This was fake.  
This was too utterly laughable and dramatic.  
Whoever this stranger was, she'd been put up to some sort of strange prank.  
Somebody had to be toying with Trishe.  
"Please stop," Trishe interjected between sobs, her voice as callous and authoritative as she could manage in her current state. "I don't know why you would pull such a sick joke on an injured person, but I'm not laughing."  
The sobbing grew quiet, and then stopped. The nurse raised her head to look at Trishe.  
 _Oh no._  
Her eyes were read and swollen, her modest make-up smeared along her cheeks, her expression mixed between absolute despair and a new look of profound shock and pain. Trishe had completely misjudged the situation. This poor girl, who called herself Courtney, was incapable of deceiving anybody. Every aspect of her exuded complete and unyielding sincerity. A perfect angel.  
"What... I didn't mean to... I'm sorry, I... Oh..." the nurse's tears flowed freely as she stood and backed away from the bed. How the hell could she be crying that hard yet manage to remain so utterly perfect, even with smudged make-up?!  
"I-I'm sorry!" Trishe waved her arms frantically, unable to contain her natural instinct to console the wounded, divine being before her. "I'm so confused, I just don't know what's going on!"  
The nurse wiped her eyes, taking several deep breaths and fighting to regain her composure.  
"No, _I'm_ sorry..." Courtney replied, her somber tone barely above a whisper. "I... I know what this is. The Father must have done this to you... For the Propagation..."  
Trishe could barely make heads or tails of the nurse's rambling, but listened silently. It was like handling a delicate flower. She was genuinely terrified that anything she said might send the poor girl back into another crying fit.  
The nurse remained quiet for several lengthy moments, the air heavy with meaning that Trishe found herself completely oblivious of. What was the Propagation...? Before she could raise her voice to ask, the nurse turned her eyes upward to stare directly into Trishe's.  
 _Holy shit, those eyes._  
Her expression was determined, serious. Her hands balled up into tight fists, she strode toward the bed with purpose and took hold of Trishe's raised left hand.  
"I know you told me you couldn't before, and I respected your decision. I wanted to support you, regardless of what you do. But... Please reconsider one more time, Lyra," the nurse's voice wavered slightly, but she pressed on. "Forget the Propagation. Forget the Father. Forget everything this horrible town is trying to do to you. You and I can leave together. We can go anywhere you want. I... I don't care if you don't feel the same way about me. It doesn't matter. As long as I can protect you, nothing else matters. Please, Lyra. I can't stand to lose you to the faith... We've both lost too much already-"  
It took every ounce of self restraint on Trishe's part not interrupt the nurse's frantic request. What in the hell was she talking about?! Was this some sort of confession, or...  
She seemed so excited, so sincere... so afraid...  
Before she could interject or attempt to calm the woman, another voice invaded the melodic perfection of the perfect angel's pleas and completely overpowered her. A booming, furious voice full of spite and condemnation.  
"And so this was your plan all along, was it?!"  
The nurse shrieked and turned, her body frozen stiff at the sight of the silhouette in the doorway. A tall, hairless man with an aged face, lined with decades of wisdom and hardship, stepped past the threshold and entered the room. If every inch of the nurse exuded gentle beauty, every inch of this man exuded authority. And he had a voice to match.  
"You sinful wench, you traitorous cur. I came to you, called upon your aid to heal a child of the faith, and what do you do?!" the man growled, raising his hands in an expression of exasperation and fury. "You seek to steal this child away, to corrupt the child's faith with your sinful wiles! Succubus! Filthy temptress of sin, you would spit upon God as you proudly lie in bed with demons and dogs! I damn you with every ounce of my being, you wretched cretin!"  
Trishe gaped at the man throughout his self-righteous curses. This couldn't be real. Does stuff like this really happen? The man was clearly all eaten up with the Spirit of the Lord, though it was difficult to tell if he was actually some sort of priest. His clothing was mostly simple - a well-worn dress shirt partially tucked into gray denim trousers. He even wore heavy workman's boots. The one article of clothing that seemed out of place with the rest was his scarf, which he draped over his shoulders and allowed to hang loosely on either side of him-  
 _Wait._  
The memory of the car crash returned once more, winding backward to the moment that caused Trishe to veer so suddenly off of the road. The naked man who stood in the road, his eyes closed...  
Trishe gasped and tried to pull herself out of the bed, but could barely get her sluggish body to respond. How long had she been unconscious? Looking back toward the nurse, she saw the poor woman was shaking violently. She wasn't sobbing this time. She was petrified, scared beyond words. Whoever this man was, his authoritative voice and behavior was not just for show.  
The man shook as well, but less from fear and more from unbridled fury. Lifting a large, leather-bound book that Trishe had previously failed to notice, he opened the tome and flipped through several pages while glancing menacingly toward the nurse.  
"And so sayeth the Messiah, ' _The Gates of Paradise will be forever closed to those whose crops are sown with but a single rotten seed. Even the purest of the faith will remain shackled, if they keep the company of heathens and sinners. Risk not the opportunity of eternal bliss. Strike down any who are unworthy, and the Gates will be open to you_.'"  
And then he closed the book. He looked toward the nurse, his face stoic and calm. His entire demeanor had changed as he recited the contents of his precious book.  
The rest happened in an instant.  
Suddenly, he was beside the bed.  
He grabbed hold of the nurse.  
He lifted her effortlessly, as if her body lacked any weight.  
And then he threw her to the floor. She cried out.  
And he was upon her. His fist raised. Then came down.  
Then raised. Then came down.  
Then raised. Then came down.  
The hammer of his righteous fury struck again and again.  
The nurse's cries became choked gasps. Then tortured wheezing. Then silence.  
Only the sound of his fist remained as he struck again and again.  
Trishe couldn't move. She couldn't say or do anything.  
It didn't seem real. How could something straight out of a horror movie actually be happening?  
She could hear the wet, sickening sound of the man's fist striking what was once a human being.  
A perfect being. An angel. Now gone, in an instant.  
Finally, the man stopped. He stood and turned toward Trishe, pulling a small rag from his pocket to absentmindedly wipe the blood from his arm and shirt. It was everywhere.  
 _Oh God. Oh no. Oh no no no._  
Despite the brutal intensity with which he had erased that gentle being from existence, the man showed no signs of exhaustion. His breathing was steady, and his features serene.  
This man had just murdered a person, and seemingly felt nothing for it.  
"I regret that I exposed you to such an ugly sight, my child," the man addressed Trishe. His voice was not remotely apologetic. If anything, he sounded annoyed. "But you must understand how important our work here is. God died to give us Paradise. We cannot refuse God's gift by allowing vermin to corrupt our faith."  
"Worry not," he added, with a faint hint of a smile at the corner of his lips. "The Propagation shall begin soon enough - and this will all be over."  
Trishe's voice caught in her throat. She trembled uncontrollably, her eyes darting between the murderer's serene expression, and what she could see of the bludgeoned corpse behind him. At that moment, she sincerely wished that the car crash had killed her.  
This wouldn't be the last time that she wished that.  
"Say a prayer, child. Say a prayer so that even wayward souls such as this might one day atone and find Paradise as we so surely shall," the man smiled and spoke with an encouraging tone.  
Trishe couldn't respond. She couldn't even begin to fathom what sort of insanity could create a person like this. She felt sick to her stomach, and resisted the urge to vomit simply out of mind-numbing terror. Before the man could press her further, a faint sound caught her attention.  
Beginning as a low whine, it quickly grew in volume. It came and went in short intervals, rising and falling in pitch and reverberating through the walls. A siren...? An air raid siren...?  
Trishe had only ever heard it in old war movies she'd watched with her father. Why was she hearing one now?  
"What is that siren...?" Trishe managed to ask aloud, her voice weak and trembling.  
The man's stoic appearance faltered. Then, alarm etched its way along the lines of his face.  
"You hear the call?" He whispered, taking a step toward the bed. "Don't listen to it! Cover your ears! It is not yet time, child! Preparations for the Propagation are not ye-"  
And he was gone. Vanished.  
Mercifully enough, Courtney's body was also nowhere to be seen.  
The room was as empty as it was when Trishe first awoke.  
The sirens peaked in volume, and then slowly faded out into silence.  
Silence. And nothing.  
Silence.  
Nothing.  
And then... Hell.


End file.
